explicitClick to confirm you are 18+

Evolution Not Eugenics - A Biologist's Rant

PhilosopherRexMay 21, 2022, 8:01:32 AM
thumb_up50thumb_downmore_vert

Natural selection (evolution) NOT artificial selection (eugenics).  

All man-made laws at their core shape people's behavior and hence are eugenic in their form and function.  This is why it's important to have as few as possible and to be as decentralized as possible - such that we can truly evolve, and such that we can stifle those parasites who would 'farm' humanity for their own ends.

What's wrong with eugenics and the farming of humanity?  -- Human bias and 'the problem of knowledge'.  Nature is vast and perhaps infinite, humans are finite, our understanding of nature is hence limited.  We cannot know the best for humanity or for life in general.  Thinking we can is arrogance/hubris of the first order.  

All things in nature interact with all other things in nature - we live in one interconnected universe.  Hence the possibilities are completely unpredictable ... and yet our minds are prediction engines.  There is no contradiction however - we are constantly working to adapt our self and our offspring to our niche, hence we individually study our niche carefully and develop or adopt theories which we believe can best enable our survival within it.  

The flaw in this thinking is that they assume some group or individual (no matter how smart or capable) can engineer some degree of perfection for EVERY niche. We each have innate biases (drives/instincts - wants/needs) that shape what we create and our limited knowledge limits the degree to which we can improve upon what currently exists. 

Furthermore, often what we think to be true turns out to be wrong. If we are only teaching/indoctrinating those around us, our family, friends, business associates, then the damage we do is limited to our personal scope of influence.  But when the State grows to ever larger scales, then, for efficiency of scale to be realized, humanity must be forced to abandon a diversity of ways & means to survive and to adopt a singular way - a singular set of laws & rules.

Such a consolidation inevitably leads to extinction when an unexpected black swan event eventuates. The unseen iceberg hits the singular ship and all of society that was been forced onboard, drowns.

Evolution is a process that life developed in concert with nature to shape us as required to succeed in the continuation of life itself. Evolution at any point in time is also not perfect - most species become extinct in time - but the point is that evolution doesn't stop adapting all species to fit into nature.

God - whatever it be, a benevolent being or the universe or even the multi-verse itself, is the originator of nature. Nature allowed life to come into existence. Life developed tools to adapt itself (to evolve). 

Large scale human interference in this process of evolution is thus detrimental to survival and so leads all life toward a cliff - a mass die-off. 

We need to regain our humility by learning our fundamental limits and teaching such to our children ... and in the end we shall, one way or the other ... because evolution never stops.

********

Note: regarding the image - It's questionable whether Darwin supported eugenics or not, but regardless, Darwin's theories are widely (and incorrectly) used by eugenicists to support their claims - much like any scam artist using some truth to convince their 'mark'. Hence I modified the image to put God front and center.